From knee to brain: a journey through the human body
Sofia Kornienko (Amsterdam), Radio Liberty
A museum in the form of a human body, CORPUS, has opened in Holland. Visitors are invited to enter the giant model through the knee, and exit through the brain.
As director Michiel van Earp rightly noted in his documentary Pretpark Nederland ("Holland is an amusement park"), the Dutch are passionately fond of mass entertainment – especially if participation in them implies a temporary transition to another reality. Usually this is a harmless pleasure with which elderly, plump provincial women go to the capital for a day, to one of the Amsterdam water parades, "to look at gays." After a couple of days, this whole farce evaporates like a mirage.
However, modern mass culture – globalized – requires unified entertainment. Decent, acceptable and paid off in any society – from Dubai to Beijing. So all kinds of "experiences" are growing like mushrooms – leisure centers, like the younger brothers of a reality show for the average inhabitant of the planet. They are created by production companies. Soon, it will be possible to spend time in exactly the same way anywhere in the world. Reco Productions International, the creator of the theme park about the ancient history of Archeon and the Dutch pavilion in Seville, last week inaugurated its next project – the museum of the human body under the appropriate name CORPUS.
A seven-story, 35-meter figure, upholstered in corten steel and therefore bright red from a protective layer of rust, appears on a flat horizon, from whichever side you approach the town of Oegstgeest. This place is strategic, equidistant from all the most important cities in the west of Holland, in the center of what the Dutch call the Randstad – the West Holland conurbation or, more simply, the most expensive and inhabited part of the country.
One of the medical consultants of the project, Professor Tom Woute, says: "It was, first of all, a commercial decision, but the founders of the museum insisted that the building be built next to one of the main highways between Amsterdam and The Hague. Initially, we planned to build a museum right in Amsterdam, in the north of the city, but we had to abandon this idea, since in order to get to the northern district of Amsterdam it is necessary to cross the bay by ferry. As a result, we found a place for a museum near the A44 highway between Leiden and The Hague. This solution is optimal, because the museum does not even need advertising now – the building in the form of a human body immediately catches the eye, everyone passing by becomes curious about what it is. I flew to Schiphol airport from the USA yesterday, and imagine – the museum building is visible even from the plane, everyone asks – what is it there? That's what it means to think commercially. I believe that in this way we have found a clear and attractive way to educate the population on the topic of health. It seems to me that too much naked information is being thrown at a person today about what he cannot, and what, on the contrary, he needs to eat, drink, and so on. And a person, of course, has a question – why? First you need to understand at least in general terms how everything works in your body, and then get information about what you need to eat broccoli."
Says the creator of the museum, director of Reco Productions International Henry Remmers: "The idea came to my mind about 12 years ago, during a visit to the Epcot Center in one of the Disney parks. I generally have to visit amusement parks a lot for work. In one of the pavilions of the center there was a figure of a pregnant woman. Visitors were invited to "chat" with the baby in the womb. Then I thought it would be interesting to establish a similar communication with various functions of the human body. That's how the idea of the CORPUS Museum was born, which I spent more than ten years implementing."
A separate production company was engaged in the creation of organic acoustic noises for the museum, which designed many amusement parks and television commercials in the sound. Not all sounds in the museum are realistic. Video projections of spermatozoa, for example, move to the sound of the trampling hooves of a herd of horses.
"You enter the museum through the knee and hit the femur. We call this area the "blood factory". Here you are clearly shown how red and white blood cells are produced, as well as what work the muscles and joints do when walking. Suddenly, a sharp object passes through the muscle tissue – the wall of the room where you are. It's a splinter. Immediately you observe the work of the white blood cells to heal the wound. Then you find yourself inside the womb of a woman, and a new life is born before your eyes. From the uterus you ascend to the so-called "gastrointestinal theater", where you have to follow the journey through the body of a cheese bun. Then you get into the "theater of the lungs". Some of us are used to taking breathing for granted, but in the "theater of the lungs" you will see what a complex, delicate process it really is. From the lungs you go to the heart, where, sitting in a mobile chair and wearing glasses for three-dimensional vision, you can imagine yourself as one of billions of blood cells. From the heart you will be taken to the oral cavity, where you will see the work of the tongue and taste buds, as well as the vocal cords. The next room is the inner ear, then the nasal cavity. In the nose you will learn what happens when a person sneezes. Many of us are trying to restrain this reflex. You will find out why it is better not to do this. By the way, the speed of a human "sneeze" is 300 kilometers per hour! Then you will find yourself inside the eyeball, where you will learn how light enters the pupil, and how the image is formed, information about which enters the brain. That's where you will go as the final destination – to the command center of the human body. After passing through the human body in 50 minutes, you will go outside through the brain and find yourself back in your usual dimension," says Henry Remmers.
One of the founders of the museum was the Dutch Ministry of Health, but the concept of the museum is completely commercial, and such an institution does not receive any subsidies. The museum is visited by appointment. Every 7 minutes, 16 people are launched into the "knee" of the rusty man. It is expected that in a year his body will master up to 200 thousand visitors. In order not to stop at local profits, the museum was originally conceived as a model for further cloning and distribution around the world. Like McDonald's or IKEA.
"The initiative of the body museum is entirely Dutch, but we have already received proposals for the construction of identical museums in several other countries, including Russia. We have already started working seriously on projects in Switzerland and Russia – unfortunately, I cannot yet tell you where exactly CORPUS museums will appear in these countries. An offer has been received from India, but we have not yet found a suitable place for construction there. I also hope to open an identical museum in New York," says Henry Remmers.
At first, I naively wondered why, with the current level of technology, the museum was concocted so primitively. After all, it would be possible to turn this wonderful idea into a unique experience of self-knowledge. Who better than the Dutch should realize the craziest fantasies about traveling inside the human body, while touching on important, sensitive topics such as addiction, abortion, violence, homosexuality, cancer, anorexia? Where, if not here, in the homeland of reality TV, would it be possible to create an expensive project using materials such as latex and silicone, so that the human museum's fabrics do not differ from the real ones by touch and appearance? But no, the walls of the museum are screaming plastic, they can be inexpensively and quickly copied countless times, and all the important ethical issues of our time and even absolutely innocent elements of the human body that can provoke the anger of a puritan, but which any modern teenager still needs to know about, have been bypassed.
"We decided to portray the human body as decently as possible. There are no bloody or erotic elements in our museum – everything is shown very restrained. In my opinion, this is how it should be," says Henry Remmers.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru
28.03.2008